


you'll notice when the smoke is cleared away

by Tyleet



Series: somewhere under the rainbow [2]
Category: Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Smallville, Superman - All Media Types, Young Justice
Genre: Clones, F/M, Gen, M/M, Terrible Parents, Unconventional Families, future Clark Kent/Lex Luthor, mentioned child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:18:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyleet/pseuds/Tyleet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Lois," he says with a smile when she's dragged before his desk in handcuffs. "It's been awhile." </p><p>"Too long," she says, and means it. Letting Lex out of sight is like forgetting there's a wasp in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you'll notice when the smoke is cleared away

**Author's Note:**

> Titles are stolen from the Jane Austen Argument's gorgeous song "Under the Rainbow," which I love awfully. Thanks so much to cortue for beta-ing, and for joining Team Lane even though she doesn't know the source material. And thanks to dignifiedrice for reading through and giving me comments even though she doesn't like Superman. (I am lucky in my friends, I know.) 
> 
> I'm having lots of issues about what fandom to stick this in. It bears the closest resemblance to the Young Justice universe, just post-season 1, but Clark and Lex definitely have a Smallville past, and I pulled Lois straight out of Lois & Clark and gave her an iphone. Consider it massively AU all around. Hopefully it works okay!

Conner looks uncannily like the photos she’s seen of a teenaged Clark, which she supposes only makes sense. Dull black hair, gold skin, a body too strong and adult to belong to a sixteen year old (let alone a one year old.) The only difference is his eyes: Clark’s are green, and Conner’s are a pale, shark-like blue.  
  
Well, the eyes and the attitude.  
  
Everything about Conner screams teenage rebellion, from the combat boots to the black bracelet to the stubborn mouth and the motorcycle she knows is parked around the corner. She bets he listens to the Cure. She bets he’s never heard of the Cure, and he listens to a cheap imitation and thinks it speaks to his soul. She bets he’s the kind of kid who distrusts authority figures and can’t stand his English homework, because he knows lies when he sees them.  
  
She knows it’s not smart, but she falls a little bit in love, right then and there.  
  
She gives him a business card and her friendliest smile, and tells him it was very nice to meet him.  
  
*  
  
He texts her for the first time two weeks later. It's a tip. Professor Ivo, a warehouse in the Suicide Slums, a mostly controlled situation that shouldn't put anyone in danger when Captain Marvel came to apprehend him.

 _you're my favorite,_ she sends back. He doesn't reply.

 She tells Clark she's going to lunch, and when he rolls his eyes and goes for his coat, she pushes him back into his seat and orders him to keep working on the organized crime story.

"You know you're not supposed to go haring off alone," Clark reminds her with feigned disapproval. "Not while Perry's still fending off the Exxon thing." So Lois maybe tends to rack up lawsuits in the course of investigating the truth. That's what the legal department is _for_.

"Who says I'm going alone?" she asks, snapping her fingers a few times behind her. "Jimmy! Come on, we're late."

The tip pans out, and Lois has the front page for tomorrow. She doesn't have any connections to the Young Justice team, and they have a surprisingly different base of operations from the League proper. Still, she doesn't want Conner to think that she wants him to be her source.

 _thanks, kid!_ she texts him from the back of the ambulance. She's not hurt--after all this time, she should know--but apparently there are procedures in place that you have to follow after being hit over the head with the butt of an energy gun. It's not like the Planet's health insurance won't cover it. _so hey, is it just me, or does Professor Ivo have a weird monkey thing? this is like the third time I've had to do robot monkey research in the last year for a story_

To her surprise, the kid texts back almost immediately _. you have NO IDEA._

 _tell me more,_ she replies, and just like that, she has her in. Conner apparently has a lot of bottled up feelings about monkeys, and spends the next hour ranting at her about them via text.

When she texts him the next day complaining about G. Gordon Godfrey, he texts back.  She can't help but feel a little smug, thumbing her phone on. Nothing breaks the ice like shared hatred.

*

She knows Clark doesn't get why this is so important to her. Superboy's not _her_ kid. Clone. Kid. If Clark doesn't feel any responsibility--and he says he doesn't, although she doesn't believe him--there's no reason for her to feel anything for Conner Kent at all.

But, see, Clark is an idiot. They've been together four years, and she loves him more than breathing, and she's seen the blue velvet box in his sock drawer that he thinks she doesn't know about, which just goes to prove it--she's an _investigative reporter_ , and he's an _idiot_ , so of course he doesn't get it.

She makes her living by caring, passionately, about other people's stories. So here's a story for you: a baby crash-lands on another planet, and he has the unbelievable good fortune to be found and raised by two decent people who love him and try their best to keep the world from hurting him.  

Clark had four parents who loved him more than anything, and he's still felt like a freak his whole life. She knows that, because she knows Clark. Lois had one parent--just one--and he spent two decades ignoring Lois and reminding her that she wouldn’t ever be good enough before he ever admitted that he might care about her. She knows what it's like to be the kid nobody wants. And she's old enough and has paid for enough therapy to know that she's never going to forgive her father--because he should have been there when she was a kid and instead she had nobody, years before she could really take care of herself. And that's not the kind of thing you can ever really forgive.

"You're going to _regret this_ ," she's tried to explain to Clark so many times, but every time his face closes up like a lockbox and he reminds her that she doesn't understand, that this isn't her family, that he needs to deal with this by himself.

"So deal with it," she usually shouts back, and the argument ends with Superman conveniently hearing an earthquake across the globe and Lois texting Bruce to demand that he talk some sense into her boyfriend.

She can't help it if Conner looks like the golden, glowing kid she's always imagined Clark was, back in Smallville--and she can't help it that he reminds her of herself at that age: angry and cynical, too smart for platitudes, not old enough to shield his disappointment at the world that should be taking care of him. She knows what family looks like when she sees it. Just because Clark's determined to regret it all in five years doesn't mean that she has to.

"Can we just stop talking about it," Clark begged her during their last big fight, about six months ago, before New Year's.

"Him," she snapped. "Not it."

"Him," Clark agreed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Please."

And she wouldn't have agreed if the line of his shoulders hadn't been so tense, if the stare he directed at her shoulder didn't look more like terror than exhaustion. The last time she saw that look on his face was the last time they fought about Lex.

"Okay," she said quietly, reaching out the way she can't help but do when she sees Clark in pain. "We don't have to talk about it."

And they haven't talked about it since.

Obviously that didn't mean that Lois changed her _mind_.

*

Almost a month later she is engaged in a serious conversation with Conner about what he should get his Martian girlfriend for her birthday--she's about two texts away from telling him to just come down to Metropolis for the weekend and she'll take him shopping--when the silent alarm of the office she's sneaking into goes off, and Lois finds herself surrounded by LexCorp security.

She expects them to take her straight to the police station--this is how it's gone down the last five times she's trespassed on LexCorp property--but whatever she's looking into this time is apparently important enough to merit the boss's office.

"Lois," he says with a smile when she's dragged before his giant desk in handcuffs that are definitely not private security regulation. He looks good. He always looks good in this office--she suspects it was designed that way: all shining glass and thin steel, Lex rising up from the desk like a smooth white statue. "It's been awhile." He nods at Mercy, and she ushers the security guards out of the room, closing the double doors behind her.

"Too long," Lois says, giving him a sharp smile in return. She means it, actually: letting Lex out of sight for too long is like forgetting there's a wasp in the room. If the wasp could kill you and wreck the world.

"Can I offer you a drink?" he asks, heading towards the drink cabinet. It's the kind of sleek metal affair you would expect from Lex Luthor's office, with its ivory-and-chrome trimmed desk and floor-to-ceiling view of the Metropolis sunset.

"Scotch," she replies, because she hates Lex and all his works every bit as much as Clark does, but she never turns down a drink. "On--"

"--On the rocks," he finishes for her, already dropping the ice cubes in. "I remember."

She doesn't always like to remember all the ways that Lex knows her intimately, but it never pays to forget. He has a history of taking advantage of unguarded vulnerabilities.

Then again, she reflects, taking the drink in her cuffed hands, so does she.

He clinks their glasses together, and they both rest against the edge of the desk, looking out at the sunset. The orange light is striking against his skin, pooling in red hollows under his eyes, at his throat. That's probably intentional too.

"So, are you going to tell me what you were doing, trespassing on my company's property?" he asks her in a pleasant voice.

"Are you going to tell me what LexCorp is doing re-opening Project Nicodemus?" she asks him, taking a sip of her scotch. It burns on the way down. 

"I think the Planet might need another reminder of what happens when its reporters break the law," he says musingly. Legal's dealing with three outstanding Lois and LexCorp-related lawsuits as it is. "I hope Perry has a funny aneurism."

"I think the public deserves to know that Lex Luthor is growing meteorite-irradiated plants that put three people in comas during the early 2000s," Lois counters. "Think of the headline: Luthor Weaponizes Kryptonite Against Humans. I might win another Pulitzer."

"That's counting chickens, a little," Lex remarks. "Where's your evidence?"

She shrugs. "I'll get there in the end."

A few years ago, Lex would have tried to put her on his payroll, or at least asked her to dinner, for old time's sake. A few years ago, Lois wasn't going to say _yes_ whenever Clark worked up the nerve to give her a ring.

"You know Mercy's going to have to take a look at your phone," he tells her instead.

She could put up more of a fight, but it's not as if she doesn't have most of the evidence she needs memorized. "So long as we're clear on which of my civil liberties are being violated," she says, and gestures to her jacket pocket. "I'd pull it out for you, but…" she lifts her drink in her cuffed hands.

Lex puts his drink down, and holds up both hands, asking silent permission. She nods, and he slips a hand into her pocket so delicately she barely notices, pulling out her phone.

It lights up in Lex's hand just as he slides it on, Conner's latest text message popping open.

Lex freezes.

"What?" she asks immediately, clumsily putting her drink down to peer over his shoulder. It's nothing important--not Justice League secrets, not something from Clark. The icon isn't even of Superboy--it's just Conner, who shouldn't be recognizable by anyone not in the Titans or the League. Or Lois.

_A says rollerblades r whimsical. is whimsical good?_

Lex remains still, staring at the small screen.

"Tell me," she orders, feeling a rush of cold down her spine. If Lex knows who Superboy is--if she's revealed who Superboy is, somehow--

"Nothing," Lex says, and he sounds so crisp and careless that she would believe him if she knew him any less. He thumbs away from the text, and deletes the incriminating photos with a few brisk clicks. "I don't think I'll press charges today. Mercy will remove your cuffs for you on your way out."

 "Lex," she says, soft and serious. Conner is family--hers and Clark's, even if he won't admit it--and their families have always been off limits. It's bad enough that Conner is sixteen years--or barely one year--old, and insists on throwing himself into danger like it's his job.

"Lois," he returns, turning her phone off and sliding it back into her pocket. She catches his hand awkwardly as he goes to draw it back. She hasn't been this close to Lex since before she started dating Clark. "Nothing's wrong," he tells her sincerely, which either means he's telling the truth, or lying exceptionally well. He smiles faintly, stroking his thumb over her trapped palm. "In fact, something might be going well."

"Now that's going to give me nightmares," she says, rolling her eyes and letting him go.

"Give my regards to Clark," he says deliberately as she turns to leave. She pauses. He hasn't voluntarily said Clark's name in years.

"What am I missing," she snaps, whirling around.

 Lex raises an eyebrow. "I hear congratulations are in order--or will be soon. Am I wrong?"

"You're not wrong," she says, because the truth will hurt him worse than a denial.

"Then congratulations," he says, and she's just about to round on him and demand that he answer her for real when Mercy appears from nowhere and gets a steel grip on Lois's arm. "Timely as always," Lex compliments her.

"I will find out," Lois threatens as Mercy pulls her away. "You know I will."

"Then I suspect I'll see you soon," Lex says, and she could swear he's suppressing laughter, the bastard.

*

So, she was maybe a little in love with Lex Luthor, once upon a time when she was twenty-three and almost too young to know better.

It was before Clark moved to Metropolis, before Superman, before all of that. She was a junior reporter at the Daily Planet, desperate to prove herself--and Lex was a reclusive billionaire with a history of violence, mental illness, and business genius. Who made it a point to never give private interviews.

She met him at the city's annual charity gala, ancient voice recorder making a square bulge in her purse, wearing a dress she bought for nineteen ninety nine on the clearance rack at Ross, a grease stain on the hem from sneaking through the kitchens to get inside. He was wearing Armani with Scarlett Johansson on his arm and a glass of gold liquor in his hand.

"Are you here on your own?" Lois had asked him at the bar, trying desperately to flirt, trying anything to keep him from walking away.

Lex hadn't bothered looking across the room at Scarlett. She remembered that. His eyes had stayed on her, blue and clear and focused. "Yes," he lied, and from his lips it sounded like the absolute truth.

"So am I," she said, too relieved to be less blunt. "I'm Lois Lane."

Lex had given her a restrained smile that meant he wanted to laugh at her but was too charming to actually do it. "Lex Luthor," he said politely. "Would you like to dance, Lois Lane?"

She took his hand and then it was like he pulled her through the next few months. She got her story, and she got a promotion at the Planet, and she got careful, searching kisses from Lex's smiling mouth, and Lex got to laugh at her after all, got to buy her ridiculous, extravagant gifts that she never used anyway, got to sit around her tiny apartment and criticize everything she owned and kiss her sweetly against her asbestos-filled walls.

She likes to think that if she met Lex now, older and wiser as she is, she wouldn't have stopped at all the stories that led her straight to Lex's door, that she wouldn't have blindly assumed someone she loved could not also have his fingers in every dirty game Metropolis offered, and more she didn't know about. For a whole year, Lois believed every beautiful lie Lex fed her, every assurance that he hadn't known what was going on in that laboratory or this record keeper's office, that he would address the problems immediately, that he was grateful he had her to keep him honest.

Then Superman appeared in the sky, and Clark Kent appeared in Perry's office, and everything changed. More of their stories ended up pointing to LexCorp. Lois stopped trusting Lex and started trusting her instincts. They broke up the day after she realized he had approved illegal experiments on human subjects, even if she couldn't prove anything.

In the end, all that year really meant is that Lois and Lex both know more of each other's secrets than they would like.

*

She texts Conner back during the cab ride to her apartment, because she doesn't want the kid thinking she's mad at him just because she can't stop thinking about Lex's pale eyes on her phone. _abort roller skates_. _come up next weekend, and I will show you the ways of the metropolis mall_

 _I might have to fight evil_ , Conner replies, and she smiles distractedly.

 _well, if evil takes a break, I'm free on Sunday._ The cab pulls up to her apartment building, and Conner doesn't text back.

She waits until she's inside, door shut and locked, and she's poured herself out two fingers of whiskey. She sits down at the kitchen table and braces herself.

"Superman," she says clearly. "If you've got a minute, can you come home?"

Clark's been spending most of his non-work time at the JLA satellite this week. It happens. But he's told her that he'll always listen to her when she calls him. (He's also promised that he won't listen in unless she addresses him directly. They drew up a contract, when she first found out the truth. So far he's only broken a rule once.)

A minute later, the bedroom window lifts gently and Clark floats inside.

"Hey," he says, coming into the kitchen, familiar and warm, a faint line between his eyebrows. "What's wrong?"

She slides one of the shot glasses across the table. Alcohol doesn't do much for him, let alone a single shot--but it's the gesture that counts. "I have something of a confession to make."

Clark sits down, eyeing the shot glass warily. "I'm listening," he says.

"So," she says briskly, because now is not the right time to have this conversation, but Conner's safety is more important than Clark's feelings, "I had coffee with Conner last month."

The conversation goes about as well as she expected. Clark is upset and guilty and thinks she overstepped, and Lois doesn't care if she overstepped, not when the kid clearly needs an adult on his life who doesn't expect him to put his life on the line in return for—for food, and shelter, and friendship, and--Clark thinks she's being completely unfair and deliberately misunderstanding what the League and the Young Justice team do, and she asks him how he would even know if Conner understood that he had choices if he'd never willingly spent more than ten minutes in a room with him, and Clark is tired of her pushing him into something he doesn't feel ready for, and she understands that, but she also knows that the kid has _nobody_ and god, sorry if she cares more about a living breathing kid than Clark's hangups. They always fight like this. They're both too angry and too certain that they're right, and no matter how hard Lois tries to rein in her temper the sight of Superman _rolling his eyes at her_ never fails to make her frustrated enough to yell.

Eventually Clark gets up to turn on the coffee machine--god knows how long he's been awake, it's been a bad week for natural disasters--and she collects herself long enough to suck in an angry breath and down the second shot of whiskey.

"Look," she says finally, her throat aching from--arguing _vehemently_ , "I'm only bringing this up because Lex dragged me into his office in handcuffs today."

Clark turns around with his coffee, familiar hard look in his eyes. "Are you all right?" he asks seriously.

"Fine," she says, holding up her bruise-free wrists as proof. "He deleted my pictures and let me go."

Clark sits back down, heavily. "And?"

"And Conner texted me while Lex was looking through my phone," she says. "And I don't know how, but Lex recognized him--the name, the picture, I don't know."

Clark sucks in a breath, and rubs a hand over his face. "You. You have a picture of him?"

"Of his secret identity," she says, watching him closely. "He's in my phone as CK." He's reacting wrong. She knows Clark, probably better than anyone, and he isn't surprised. He looks exhausted and resigned, but not surprised.

"I don't think it's anything to worry about," he says finally, not meeting her eyes. For man with a double life, he's a terrible liar. Usually she loves that about him.

"Of course it's something to worry about," she says, unable to help the way her voice is raising. "He didn't just recognize him, Clark, something about the text spooked him. And it was not a spooky text!  Something is _going on_ with Superboy and Lex Luthor, and you're not worried about it--you're not worried that your _nemesis_ knows who Conner is and probably also where to find him--so clearly you know something I don't."

"It's JLA business," he mutters, still staring at his coffee cup. "You don't need to know."

"It's my business," she snaps, because it _is_. "I'm not going to stop caring what happens to the kid just because you don't want him in your life, and Lex has always been our business--or did you forget where the second Pulitzer came from?--and I do need to know--when it's Lex, when it's you, when it’s _your son_ , for God's sake--"

The cup shatters in Clark's hands, pewter shards and hot coffee exploding on the table. They both stand up automatically, staring at the mess. He's always so careful with his strength.

"I need to leave," Clark says abruptly, a weird, blank look on his face.

"Don't," she snaps.

"I need to go," he repeats, almost pleadingly, and then he's gone, and she's left with a broken mess, coffee dripping down to the floor.

*

She doesn't clean it up. That's Clark's mess, and he can deal with it.

Instead, she sits down in the middle of the living room floor and starts working on the Lexcorp farms story, which is how this whole stupid thing got started. She's not sure how this is Lex's fault, exactly, but she's sure it is. She'll make sure Perry publishes every brutal word, no matter what he says.

She orders in, and eats chow-mein on the living room floor while yelling at the G. Gordon Godfrey segment on Fox News. When it switches to commercial, she surfs through overstock.com and finds a high-quality yet affordable black leather jacket that should perfectly suit an angsty teenager with his own motorcycle. Then she realizes she doesn't know Conner's size, so she orders three, and has them delivered care of the Themiscyran embassy, figuring Diana can get them to him as well as anyone.

Superman comes on the news, rescuing orphans from a fire in south London. Cat's covering the story. Lois switches it off viciously, and grabs her phone.

She has a number, under B, that she's only supposed to use in the direst of emergencies.

 _Take my boyfriend out for pie and logic, plz,_ she taps out.

She gets a text back almost immediately. _This number is for emergencies only._ He does this every time.

_who says this isn't an emergency?_

That doesn't get a response, as she didn't really think it would, so she sends:

 _whatever. let's have drinks this weekend_.

_Saturday. 21:00. Heartattack + Vine. You're buying the first round._

_deal,_ she types, even though that's bullshit because she struggles by on a reporter's salary and she has it on the best authority that Bruce made enough billions last quarter to build himself a death ray.

She falls asleep before Clark comes home.

*

She wakes up in the middle of the night, and the window's open. She sits up, and she can just make out Clark's enormous silhouette, dangling off the edge of the fire escape.

She gets up and walks silently over to the open window, resting her elbows on the sill. The night has that deep, rich blue color that means the sunrise will start soon. Superman's suit matches it exactly, the cape a dark, still shadow behind him. His face and hands are a paler blue in the moonlight, cool and perfect. He looks like a Greek sculptor's attempt at a gargoyle, incongruously guarding her fourth floor walkup.

"I'm sorry," he says, shifting awkwardly, and just like that he’s only Clark, the fire escape squeaking beneath him.

"Me too," she says quietly, and means it. "Are you coming in?"

He gets up onto his knees, and she doesn't move out of the window, so when he rests his hands against the sill she covers them with her hands, and he stays still so she leans up to his perfect mouth. The kiss is very soft, and very slow, and Clark delicately tangles their fingers together, like he's afraid of hurting her for the first time in years. And it's terrible, every single stupid reminder that Lois is in love with an idiot who has no idea that she'll always want him to come inside, and her chest aches so badly that all she can do is squeeze his fingers and pull him closer.  

*

They're careful with each other for the next few days. Neither of them brings up Conner. Lois thinks about bringing up the secret hiding in Clark's sock drawer, but she doesn't do that either.

*

At 9:00pm on Saturday, she meets Bruce Wayne for drinks at Heartattack & Vine, which is exactly the kind of dark, swanky bar that America's second-richest billionaire prefers. They do this every few months, although Bruce is a paranoid bastard, so it's never the same bar twice. She does it because she likes Bruce, and she likes being on the inside of any story that might be breaking at Wayne Industries. She's pretty sure Bruce does it because he considers this a way to keep tabs on Clark's mental state, and make sure all of his contingency plans for Clark going mad and taking over the world are still effective.

He's at a private table in the corner, smiling with white teeth. She prefers Batman to Bruce, honestly, but Batman never feeds her corporate leaks, so.

"Did pie happen?" she says in greeting, dropping her purse on the table and gesturing over the barmaid, because she did promise. Two gin martinis, with extra olives. Bruce hates olives. She gets her vengeance where she can.

"Pie did not happen," Bruce replies, grimacing at their order. She knows Bruce is probably Superman's closest--well. Clark would say friend, Bruce would say colleague. They go to diners and talk shop; it's a thing.

"What about logic?" she asks, and smiles as their martinis are brought over.

"As far as he's concerned, Conner's fine where he is," Bruce says deliberately. "Living with the team full time."

Lois downs about half her martini. "What happened, Bruce? I thought we were making progress."

"Were we?" Bruce asks, swirling his glass pointlessly. "He's a stubborn man, your fiancé."

"We were," she reminds him sharply. "After New Years, you know we were. He told Conner his name. And he's not my fiancé."

Bruce shrugs. "He bought you a ring."

"Did a memo go out, or something?" she asks, stabbing at a runaway olive with her toothpick. "Don't even tell me. You're a busybody, I'll deal. The _point_ is that Clark was starting to talk about Conner like he might be a teenager, and now he's back to treating him like a time-bomb--and it's got something to do with Lex Luthor." She leans forward in her chair, eyes on Bruce's carefully impassive face. "I thought you said you'd looked him over, that there's no way he could have any secret programming, or mind control, or anything."

"We did," Bruce says, unreadable. "We were mistaken."

Lois feels sick. "So--so you're telling me Clark's right? He is a time bomb?"

"Defused," Bruce says after a horrible pause. "He discovered a trigger, but he's being helped with that. By the best deprogrammers available," he adds sternly when she opens her mouth to protest.

"So what does that have to do with Lex?" she asks. "Why doesn't it matter that he knows who Conner is?"

"That's confidential," Bruce says, and she kicks him under the table.

"If you weren't going to tell me, you wouldn't have shown up," she snaps. "Spill."

"Conner uncovered some new information a few months ago," Bruce says slowly. "He didn't tell anyone about it until New Years."

He stops, and finishes his drink, right down to the olives. She raises her eyebrows.

"Clark isn't Conner's only genetic contributor," Bruce says, his face briefly wrinkling with disgust. "He has human DNA."

That's all he needs to say, honestly. She knows the rest, the truth as steady and awful as the pale blue eyes in Conner's face.

"Lex," she whispers, horror settling into her belly like a hard weight. "He's Lex's son."

Bruce looks at her with something that might approach sympathy, in another man's face. "We always knew he was obsessed with Superman."

She downs the rest of her martini in one burning gulp. "And Clark knows."

"Clark knows," Bruce agrees, and she groans. That's half her work undone right there.

"Wait," she realizes with another sick lurch. "Conner knew about this for _months_?"

"You need another drink," Bruce says flatly, and flags down the waiter.

*

She remembers everything about the day Superman came to Metropolis.

It was two days after Perry assigned her a temporary partner, just until he learned the ropes, and Clark followed her around with wide eyes under enormous glasses and elbows that went everywhere and a surprisingly sarcastic streak, and she was so busy with the story that she barely saw Lex at all, even though they were practically living together at the time.

She was investigating a case of sabotage at the new Mars Rover launch--and they caught her sneaking into the warehouse, and they left her tied to a post with a bomb about to go off.

And then a man--the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen--appeared from literally nowhere, broke the zip ties holding Lois to the post like they were made of paper, and cupped the bomb between his palms, leaving nothing but a muffled boom and thin smoke streaming between the cracks in his fingers.

He'd dropped the blackened remains like they were nothing, and pulled Lois up with him to the sky. The _sky._

"Aliens exist," she told Lex breathlessly after Superman dropped her gently behind the press lines at the launch site, after Lex came tearing out of his limousine with all the blood drained from his face. "They literally _walk among us_." She was laughing as she said it, incredulous and elated and still a little bit terrified, her heart beating too fast and her smile stretching her face too wide. She'd been carried through the clouds by an alien from another planet. And he wore spandex, and a cape, and Lex was gripping her wrist too tight, like he was afraid she'd float back up to the clouds.

"They do," Lex had breathed, face still white, his eyes red.

She went back to work after that, despite Lex's protests--this was the biggest story in the _history of everything,_ and she had been there in person the entire time, of _course_ she was going back to work--and Clark was there, beaming and disheveled and ready to be ordered around. 

"Don't fall for me, farm boy," she warned him, after he stuttered and dropped fresh copy at her feet. "I don't have time for it."

They got the story out that night. 

They started another story the next day.

"When do I get to ditch the newbie?" she asked Perry.

"When I say so," he told her, rolling his eyes. "Maybe I'll make it permanent. I think the kid's a calming influence on you."

Clark smirked, and she ordered him to get her a coffee.

Two days later, she got a text from Clark at two in the morning. He'd got a lead, and was following Dr. Milverton to STAR Labs. By himself. _Again_.

"I'm going to kill him," she muttered, fumbling for her glasses.

"Who?" Lex had murmured, burying his face in her neck.

"Clark Kent," she said, stabbing blindly at her phone.

Lex's hands tightened on her ribs. "What did you say," he whispered.

"He's nobody," she said dismissively. "I'm going to kill him, and he'll be a body."

Lex's grip very slowly relaxed, and it occurred to her that something was wrong.

"Do you know him?" she asked, uncertainly. It was hard to picture Lex having anything to do with the clumsy, cornfed boy who was already making a habit of knocking things off Lois's desk.

"Knew him," Lex said slowly, letting go of her altogether. "Past tense. When I lived in Smallville."

"Oh," she said. "I--he's a lot younger than you." He looked young to Lois, and Lex had at least five years on her.

Lex was quiet.

Clark was trailing a potentially dangerous criminal, alone at two in the morning.

"I have to go," she said, reaching for her shoes. 

"Of course," Lex said, not moving. "Go."

*

Conner doesn't meet her at the mall.

 _sorry_ , the text reads. _I had to fight evil_.

Lois laughs helplessly into her hand. If she doesn't laugh, she might cry.

*

She calls Lex while she's browsing through The Cure's discography at the mall's Barnes and Noble.

"Lois," he answers, smooth as always. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I'll keep this brief," she says pleasantly. "I'm never going to forgive you for what you did. And neither is Clark." Lex starts to reply, but she cuts him off. "Then again, we were never going to forgive you anyway."

Lex exhales slowly. "Then I ask again," he says, nothing in his voice to let her know she struck a nerve, even though she knows she has. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"If you hurt Conner again," she says, her heart pounding in her throat, "if you use any kind of trigger on him, if you _drug_ him, if you touch him." She pauses, getting her breath under control.

"Yes?" he asks, quietly.

"Then I'll hurt you, Lex," she tells him, almost sadly. She thinks of the tears in Lex's eyes when Superman saved her life, of his hands falling away from her in the dark when she said Clark's name. She knows how.

"He's my son," Lex says, and his voice is a little rough, now.

"He's sixteen," Lois says, even if it isn’t quite true. She picks up _Boys Don't Cry_ , checks the track list. "If he wants to see you when he's eighteen, that's up to him."

She buys the album. She’ll send it to Diana later, for eventual delivery to Clark’s son. Lex hangs up, no promises made.

She goes home.

**Author's Note:**

> I love feedback of all kinds, I love talking about Lois Lane, and I'm wildehack over on tumblr if you want to come and say hi. The next story in the series is finished and just waiting to be revised, so expect an update soonish. :)


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